The Erdtree: Explained! (A Philisophical Analysis) | Elden Ring Lore
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 มิ.ย. 2024
- Welcome to our explanation of the Erdtree! What it is really, whether it is a parasite, a blessing, real, an illusion, or not quite any of them! In this lore video we explain what the roots of the tree are, explain the lore of the Omens, explain the curse of a leader such as Marika or Radagon, explain grace, and link together Elden Ring with the broader message of Dark Souls and From Software games, and just what the creators are trying to say through their art.
This video gives a lot of insight into the DLC including the role of Messmer, the aim of Rykard, the reason snakes have wings, why the Erdtree has a shadow, and most importantly: what "story" is told by the fallen leaves!
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Hawkshaw. - เกม
![Shadow of The Erdtree | Story & Ending Explained [Lore]](/img/n.gif)
"Not Just A Parasite" is gonna be the title of my autobiography
Nice.
boutta be new york times bestseller
What do you think the Erdtree is?
"The fallen leaves tell a story...." In this video, written many months before the DLC, we will explain what the fallen leaves tell us!! Surprise video, released with The Shadow of the Erdtree! Hope you enjoy it!
I believe the Erdtree is what allowed something...greater...to benefit and thrive regardless of what means justified that end. It promised this to who could provide this resource, deliver it, and have the same mindset being willing to deceive, manipulate, and maintain whatever perception of reality earned the further trust and allegiance necessary. To follow suit, unquestioning of the potential of the outcome, to secure their own position of power and acceptance and that this would never fail. Nature operates on rules that cannot be so easily intercepted or altered unless there is a reason one must believe that is the contrary, especially if it secures their position of power and image of absolutism.
That short Robert Frost poem manages to summarize the reality and, with that, can be used to remind ourselves that the only absolute is change and does so by fallen leaves.
They, too, fell.
The ranni version of the scatree
Skibidi Tree
The Erdtree is Faith, ❤
BIG TREE
“The hights we try to reach in the future, can be dangerous if we ignore the depths of that past.”
🔥🔥Bro cooked with this one 🔥🔥
How many videos do you have ready to go? This is crazy, there's no way you're making these lengthy videos every day. I'm not complaining, I'm impressed.
Fr I don’t understand this shit
Here’s an idea: buy the game.
@@PDXTundra Again? Why would I? And what does this have to do with anything?
How do I get to shpoople tree?
You count thine blessings child, look not the gift horse in the eyehole. Mouth hole, whatever.
For me the Erdtree is like the Balete tree... Balete trees grows in other trees while their roots seeks the land and during that it strangles the tree where it grows until it doesn't have branches and leaves and that tree will die while the Balete tree flourish and then will use the dead tree as a source of nourishment as it decompose...
I think that how the Erdtree does to the Crucible... It started as small and it gets bigger until it tramples the Crucible while the Erdtree sucks out the power of the dying Crucible as its own... Maybe through this will explain why there's still traces of the Crucible while the Erdtree is the dominant power on the land... Like the Omens and misbegottens..
Congrats, that is part of my headcanon now
I see it as the bed of chaos because the bed of chaos lore was about being created to start a fire and they lost control of it what if it became a entity
With your mentions of different people being leaves, branches, or whole boughs of a tree really makes me rethink Melina's line "I was born at the foot of the Erdtree."
Does she mean physically or that she's from the base; the early life or the source.
Did she say that? Wasnt it inside
@@Horstolord04 Born at the foot of the tree, given her purpose inside.
Ok so basically - the Erdtree/Elden Ring/Golden Order represent order and civilization, which arose form the chaos of the crucible, representing the wild state of the world before civilization. Out of self preservation, civilization demonizes all that came before as savage and threatening (the Omen, the fire of the giants, etc.)
The Erdtree is semi-illusory because civilization is only strong where the faith is strong, and the further you get from it the less real it is (basically the social contract).
And in order to change society, once it's ready to be burned down and reshaped, it requires the power to burn it all down (the kindling maiden), a realistic new idea to replace the old (a mending rune) and a strong force of will to execute it (the Tarnished).
Did I get it?
Couldn't be bothered to watch the video because I had to go through this guy's first timeline episodes and they were so terrible I just had to give up watching the rest. Literally half of what he talked about it genuinely never mentioned anywhere in the actual game.
If that's the content of the video, that stuff is also wrong. The Crucible and Erdtree are not opposed, nor can be, because they're the same thing. In the Age of Godfrey Crucible Knights we among his best soldiers, and only over time, by Radagon's reign, did the manifestations of the Crucible become associated with barbarism, since in earlier times it was considered a sign of divinity. The early Golden Order literally worshiped the Crucible, and the Crucible has always been part of "Gold" and Order, both the one belonging to Marika and all other Orders.
The Erdtree is not illusory, it literally burns and drowns a city in ash. None of the stuff said there is ever mentioned in-game. All of this is silly.
The Erdtree was never burned before us. It couldn't anyway, because only the Flame of Ruin can burn it, and not even that work as long as Maliketh holds the Rune of Death, which he did since the foundation of the Golden Order. The rest is also absolutely not in the game anywhere.
See why I hate this kind of "lore" videos? They desperately want to come up with novel ideas instead of the correct ones, and they end up looking like stuff completely removed from any of the original narrative of the actual game. Like, people talk about the Erdtree having burned in the past and forget the literally main plot of the game tells you that stuff is literally impossible unless a complex series of event are accomplished one after another, and Maliketh has to be dead.
Rubbish.
@cammyshill3099 Leyendell has a layer of ash at its base. Burning the Erdtree is the first cardinal sin.
@cammyshill3099 I think you've forgotten elden ring, and every soulsborne game for that matter, does not have an official story. Miyazaki has stated this since DS1, the story and details regarding it are left just ambigious enough so that, as an audience, we can come up with interpretations on our own. He's on record stating this as a design goal, reflecting on his experience reading English novels as a kid. He didn't know all the words, so he made up his own details and conjured forth a story using what he could glean.
Stay away from the idea of "correct ideas", they do not exist in this series. There is only interpretation, it's intentional.
That being said, I figure there are a few holes in your theory. Something has absolutely burned in Leyndell beforehand, though whether it's the illusory Erdtree or a physical Greattree is hard to say.
I believe the Erdtree is an object of faith, shown via the Guidance of Grace to the Tarnished. It's illusory, but that doesn't make it not tangible or unburnable. Morgotts illusion are a testament to that - remember that Omen possess the strength of the Crucible, growing animal features and possessing "cursed" (in Morgotts perspective) blood. It's not a stretch to suggest the Erdtree is an application of the Crucibles projection ability, especially giving the visuals of the Crucible aspect spells. Golden and translucent, just like the Erdtree.
This also lends credence to why someone who envisions flame is needed as kindling - to have the erdtree burn you must literally see it somehow. This is why the prophets that have a vision of the Erdtree burning from the flame of ruin are exiled, they literally become a vector to destroy the Erdtree. Double for the giants, obviously. Of course this burning is the death of the erdtree, which could explain why we need to unleash the rune of death before the erdtree can burn properly.
With the idea that the Erdtree is a projection, we can then wonder what om earth is actually going on in the lands between. My best guess is there is a Greattree seperate from the Erdtree (Root Resin description) that we see sprawling throughout the underground of the lands between, enabling souls to return to marika for rebirth through an attached erdtree.
It's good to note the Erdtree has a primordial form, as mentioned by Siluria's Tree, "close to life itself". The Golden Stars incantion states that the elden beast either came with the star that had the elden ring with it, or the beast literally is the elden ring, depending on interpretation of the description - Siluria's Tree would suggest the latter. Siluria's Tree is modeled after the primordial form of the erdtree, specifically "its crucible", and looks the exact same as the tail of the Elden Beast. This implies the Elden Beast is the Crucible, all life stemming from it including the elden beast.
This doesn't explain the elden ring itself well, though. With the erdtree and Crucible so isolated from the elden ring, it could simply be some sort of incredible weapon or seal, a method of channeling holy energy like the other seals we find in game. I think the origin of the Elden Ring itself will be explored in the DLC, as a lot of the in-game evidence points towards the Crucible or erdtree instead. That being said, the fact that the Elden Beast lowers the body of the current God (Radagon/Marika) into the ground might mean the Elden Ring and the Elden Beast are different. This would further support the Elden Beast being the Crucible.
It's hard to say this conclusively, however, as we do see the large gash in the side of the Elden Beast. This could be the unexplained wound Marika has in her side, or it could be a result of shattering the Elden Ring, either scenario will support different conclusions.
After all this, you may be left confused. Some parts of elden ring steer us to opposing conclusions. You will realize that, should you look at the evidence in its entirety for every fromsoft game, this happens over and over in their entries lmfao
So... we have to interpret, and discuss, and butt heads, just like Miyazaki always intended. That's why videos like this one are so important, they give us new ideas to digest. I'm of the opinion the only wrong way to enjoy these games is by removing that food for thought, discouraging the speech among the community and shutting down those who find the courage to put their ideas out here for us to ravage.
Actually, we know runes can be formed from life, given the creation of mending runes we use throughout the game. This could suggest the the Elden Ring is a powerful set of runes made by the Elden Beast, powered by the Crucible, which came to the Lands Between on a Golden Star.
This could be after the One Great is split into life, as per the frenzied flame ending. This could be the origin of the outer gods and stars as well, life that originated outside of the lands between. Part of my brain is wary of this worldview in general, as a force that wants the world to be consumed is probably prepared to lie to trick people into receiving its flame.
What a nightmare, this has tired me out haha
It's also worth mentioning the Great Tree in the Root Resin description could have existed before Marika, during the age of the Crucible. Putting together with Leyndells two sets of architecture would support an initial burning and a takeover. Removing the physical boughs of the Great Tree to be replaces with a holy scion - the Erdtree. As if Leyndell was a society before marika, and was victim of a hostile takeover. It would beg the question: who was the original kindling? Melina claims she's "burned and bodiless", indicating she could be a kindling maiden that was burned long ago. Maybe as the sacrifice of one that evisions flame, as part of the original burning. Hard to define a cardinal sin no one has ever done before. To put a finer point on it, a "cardinal sin" is, by definition, a sin that prevents the individual from attaining peace in the afterlife. This would suggest being burned as kindling would have some brutal ramifications, such as becoming a spirit ie dying in only the body.
Glad to see someone else reference Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay". After all, GRR Martin named and premised his Song of Ice and Fire series after another of Frost's poems.
What an amazing video! You were able to put the whole world of Elden Ring into its true perspective, Miyazaki must be proud of you!
Now I only hope you make a sequel to this video including the lore of The Shadow of the Erdtree
Perfect to watch/listen to while I get immersed and destroyed by this DLC
This is the best grasp and articulation of the lore and symbolism in this game I’ve heard. Makes many other lore hunters seem sophomoric
I do love how that lines up with Radagons golden order. Everything becomes one in the erd tree
That rome total war music. I was just playing it and I thought I was going insane
Cool, but youre not addressing the fact that life existed before the Erdtree, including completely upright humanoids. The lands between were inhabited by dragons, and the numen (Marika's folk) lived elsewhere, not to mention the hornsent from the Shadow realm.
The Erdtree is actually a completely foreign entity delivered to rhe lands between with the divine beast, and isnt a natural part of the ecosystem at all.
We mention all that
I was just thinking that we need more tree lore!
I feel like it’s the bed of chaos from dark souls 1 if you remember it was created to start a new flame and they lost control of it so it being like a deity
@@t0onlone531nah it’s just simple allegory. All Order is built on the ruins of another, forged through violence.
all of us hawkshaw fans are eating good all month
While I feel like there are pretty substantial pieces of lore that contradict your narrative here (for example it is pretty well established that various civilizations flourished well-before the Erdtree) I think interpreting the Erdtree as society and the golden order as a societal order is awesome and a worthwhile addition to the dialogue.
We mention that there were societies before the Erdtree, and mention how the ash of old societies are all around on and on in a cycle. This is why when arriving at the capital there is already ash on the ground, which we show visuals of too. Perhaps you mean we are saying the forming of the first tree is the first stage, this is the great tree, not the Erdtree.
the erdtree fears those with a vision thing checks out in the dlc considering how grace leads us to foil miquella's plans
I believe the elden beast is the end tree. It's tail is "mimicking " a tree and taking on its role. Marika summoned it through the greater will and it's a faith equivalent to astel. It came from the void, where darkness hides potential and possibilities. Were astel is the stars and their matter. The beast channels the faith in Marika through the universe into golden light. Faith is golden because of the beast. It can heal, bless, or attack. As doubts sets in, through the death of Godwyn, Ranni set its downfall in motion.
I believe the dlc map is the bottom view of the lands between. It has too many parallels to be nothing else then purposeful. But I think it's more likely that it's the dead version that would be at the center but is hidden by a veil, like the black knife assassins. And that's a consequence or how the rune of death was removed from the Elden Ring, and so the land of death was also. To stop it from being revealed she sent mesmer to burn it down and destroy it.
the elden beast has existed since the time of dragons, placidusax literally has the representation of an elden ring in a more primitive form in Farum azula and we know that through the DLC that Greater will was here long before Marika, at the time that Marika and the fingers were fighting for her cause the greater will had already abandoned the lands between before their cause even began so I don't think there is the slightest possibility that Marika had in some miraculous way gotten in contact with the greater will to send the elden beast
Excellent video. Good insight and beautifully written.
I feel all Elden Ring videos need to explicitly state if they have or do not have DLC spoilers/discussion. I am not risking it lol
This was written many months ago - it's safe!
I mean, it said explained in the title…..
New in-depth facet of the Lore history. Gnarly idea about the painting
TOGETHA... WE WILL DEVOUR THE VERY LORE (real talk your output this month has been insane!)
So glad you have been enjoying it! DLC lore to come!!
this is what good poetry should be: bridging understanding(a 200+ hours game) with brevity(30 mins)
with Shadow of The Erdtree out, and Messmer's theme being snakes, i have the following question: will you update the video of the Snake Iceberg (once you have all the info)?
Amazing work.
Heard you talk for a total.of ten seconds and subscribed and liked u have a natural talent for radio or.whatever this is
A simple one liner about sleep being necessary because tarnished cant die and my mind is blown
How're you liking the DLC so far Hawkshaw?
Only two main bosses in so far... but it's just amazing!
Hell yeah man, they went all out that's for sure!
An enemy of the erdtree can become elden lord and wield its power
Gj, that was really good
This is an excellent vid. The law of nature must be respected
At the very end of the video would have been a perfect place to segue into a Displate sponsorship
Music from Gothic 2 :3 Greatest polish game
Everyone remembers Stay Gold Ponyboy but nobody remembers LETS DO IT FOR JOHNNY!
15:39 call me crazy but that looks like the left path to the spider castle In Bloodborn, where the assholes throw rocks while not getting the crazy eye of saron
My belief is that the Erdtree is actually the Great Tree, but infected by the Elden Ring. The Elden Ring is a Parasite that has latched onto it and feeds on the souls. It's why in other endings the tree changes colors: you're replacing the Elden Ring's infection with something else.
I really like this theory and agree, by and large
I remember Vaati, in one of his first ever Elden Ring videos, claimed the Erdtree is a parasite and got shit on for it. Turns out he was right.
no, the DLC adds even more contradiction and improbability to this, I even start to doubt whether there really existed a great tree before or we just misinterpreted it, the erdtree seems much more like it was literally created from a crucible, and what is a crucible? it is simply the mix of a bunch of life forms, the gate of divinity seems to use the same principle of using a bunch of life to open the way to the divine, possibly there were countless crucibles and trees that were born from them
Thank you for your hard work!
HAWKSHAW STOP I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR ALL THIS WHAT ARE YOU GUYS SCADUING WHAT LEVEL OF BLESSING IS THIS 💜🦋🔥
W upload im ur biggest fan btw
“…but even deeper”. “..even deeper still”. “..but the fallen leaves tell an even deeper story”. Bro, STOP! It’s already too deep. That’s deep enough.
Stay gold Ponyboy... 16:10
BIG TREE GOOD
Just noticed, are all the people on the lands between blind ?! And only the demigods are blessed with sight ?
No.
And so, here we go again...
**evil anime villain laugh**
I like Elden Ring 😃
❤❤
I am not attracted to this storytelling style. I liked your very old and excellent videos on dark souls.
But this has no sources, and is glossing over everything, in favor of a nice phrasing. How is anything here believable when it is not detailed and explained?
Our editor got their scheduling wrong and sadly didn't have time to place item descriptions and dialogue text throughout the video. We will be updating the video once the DLC has calmed down a bit.
Holy word salad. This needed longer to cook but i understand you had to release this soon for views. I see the potential.
"Nature must be balanced, or risk exstinction"
AND THEN A TARNISHED... with a vision, COMES ALONG... Watch as this walking ecological disaster carves their way through the food chain.... bask in the slaughter of various food chains.
I love that every Souls game is essentially taking place in a sort of post-apocalyptic era. But I'd like to see one where we're playing in one of the Golden Eras spoke about in the past. I want to see what the world was like when everything was just an undead husk.
Greetings.
"A Philisophical Analysis"🤓👆
No joke. I would've paid to have read this a day or 2 early to chew on it before I had the video. I've stopped it 30 seconds to think abt relating theories and fucked up the flow of your EXCELLENT story telling and visuals
Sounds like the usa lol
new youtube format on pc, who dis
I did not understand this video
I understood all your June videos
Thank you.👍⭕(
“Gold and almost see-through”
You mean translucent?🙄
More like not a parasite at all, we're still dealing with Vaaty stuff from 2022?
gg
I feel like I’m watching a Skyrim lore video why do all y’all sound the same 😂
why do you think Merica exists.. like Rome... the tree burns
Seconds
It doesn't collect light but rather it collects the radiant power of the greater will. A plant is a solar collector that condenses the light energy into sugar. The sugar is what the plant actually eats. Change the words and the tree collects and condenses the power of the greater will into souls. Souls are what the tree actually eats.
Wot
@@cardgameenjoyer7446 The Erdtree behaves much like a real tree. It starts as a seed and grows up but it isn't using the sun to generate the food it uses to grow. Souls go in and out of the Erdtree. If it wasn't making new souls then the population would never grow. It's getting the energy from somewhere to achieve this. So if you think about how a tree grows and functions and then put those concepts onto the Erdtree, you get an ethereal tree that grows by converting A into B. If A isn't light, then what could it be? Why not the power of the greater will. Not all light is visible so let's assume the power of a supposed god might not be either. The tree takes in the power radiates across space and it condenses that power. The condensed power, B, would be whatever the tree uses to grow. We know there are less people now and the tree is doing worse. Cities full and prosperous, tree is gangbusters. Cities empty and dilapidated, tree is slowly dieing. To infer that the souls have a direct correlation to the health of the tree seems safe to me. What does that now look like? Tree takes in A(GW Power) and creates B(souls).
What is the Erdtree? That's what I think it does. It's a tree doing what trees do but it's doing it with different I/O. Why choose a tree if you don't intend it to act as a tree? Well that's how trees work so I suggest it has a similar framework
@@kgreen242424 but why ethereal tree not the original great tree
@@cardgameenjoyer7446 I can see through it and you can't normally do that. Maybe ethereal is not the right word but I am referring to the insubstantial quality of it. The lack of opacity. The original great tree was a terrestrial tree. The Erdtree has the form and guise of a tree but it isn't really a tree. Whatever intelligence chose the tree and not something else for the parasite to attach to, presumably had a reason. Could be the original great tree did use the sun but the souls had no grace. The new tree can add grace if desired and that's the difference between an infected and uninfected great tree.
wtf is this take
If the Erdtree is a parasite then Elden ring goes back all the way to dark souls and it’s a born child of the bed of chaos. Remember if ya played dark souls we killed a “parasite” so easy to we just had to get past the burning tree. What if the erd tree is a descendant from the bed of chaos? Why I say that? Because in the beginning it explains that they created a spark of fire but they lost control of it. And it became the bed of chaos so that means it was created by the ancients (dark souls era) then dark souls 2 came had nothing to do with dark souls can be considered the next era dark souls 3 the next era. And then Elden ring now if you look at the dlc it make sense because like in dark souls 3 you can become a dragon as well in the shadow of the erdtree. To me these are decades past from dark souls 1 era and Elden ring is the current error.. what I’m still wondering about is at what point the frenzied flame became to be? I would really like to know how was the frenzied flame created or the god of the frenzied flame because the source of it comes from a god right?
Ehhh a bit too rambly for me
Nah you just have an issue with comprehension
It's mostly word salad nonsense 😅
-skill- IQ issue
@fbinformant you aren't even using the term word salad properly
Really wish I could watch your videos, but the past few have just thrown ads in my face every 2-ish minutes.
this is utter jibberish
You have said no lore your just rambling
lol this came full circle in the hype bubble. People making videos about the damned erdtree again!!! we got a whole crazyblack sexy busting yellow stuff tree !!
Why is this giving anti-capitalism/anti-hegemony/anti-"end of history" vibes? Hankshaw what kind of commie are you? Love you
Im team #ScatTree
First